Post Docs

Dr. Zhanghua Gao (Mark) got his PhD degree in Lanzhou University, working in the synthesis of terpenoids with professor Wei-Dong Li. He then joined professor Kocieński’s group in Leeds University as a postdoc, focusing on the synthesis of Ionomycin, a polyether ionophore. He worked in chemical industry in Sunderland and Southampton prior to moving in Oxford to join the VG group.

Dr. Shilu Fan was born in Anhui, China in 1984. He received his B.S. degree from Anhui Normal University in 2007 and Ph.D. degree from the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2012. He worked in the functionalization of pentafluorobenzene with Prof. Xingang Zhang during his Ph.D. period. Then he joined the Gouverneur group as a postdoctoral fellow, to work on trifluoromethylation reactions.

Dr. Begoña Checa obtained her degree in Chemistry from the University of Granada. After that, she moved to the University of Barcelona for her Experimental Masters in Organic Chemistry working with titanium enolates in aldol addition reactions under the supervision of Professors Urpí and Romea. She received her PhD working in total synthesis of natural products under the supervision of Professors Bosch, Amat and Llor at the same University. Begoña joined the Gouverneur group as an academic visitor in April 2011. She worked as a post-doc researcher in the area of PET.

Dr. Sander S. van Berkel received his MSc degree in Organic Chemistry at the Radboud University Nijmegen (NL) in 2003. He received a PhD degree in 2008 for his work on developing tools for monitoring thrombin generation, under the supervision of Prof. Floris Rutjes. He then moved to the Leibniz-Institute of Plant Biochemistry in Halle (D) for a postdoctoral stay in the group of Prof. Ludger Wessjohann, working on natural product synthesis. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Oxford, working on novel non-invasive cancer imaging strategies under the joint supervision of Profs. Ben Davis, Christopher Schofield and Veronique Gouverneur.

Dr. Oscar Lozano obtained his degrees in Biology and Pharmacy from the University of Barcelona. After that, he carried out his PhD under the supervision of Professors Bosch, Amat and Escolano at the same University. His Thesis was entitled Stereoselective alkylation of chiral bicyclic lactams: Application to the synthesis of alkaloids. In May 2008, he joined the Gouverneur group to work in the synthesis of enantiopure fluorinated heterocycles. From January 2010 until December 2013, he worked on a project involving the preparation of new radiotracers for cancer imaging.

Dr Dong Li (Dennis) was born in Hubei, China in 1983. He received his B.S. degree from Wuhan University and M.S. degree from Chengdu Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2005 and 2008, respectively. Then he moved to Hokkaido University in Japan for PhD study under the supervision of Prof. Masaya Sawamura, where he worked on palladium and copper catalyzed allylic substitutions. After completing his PhD in 2011, he joined the Gouverneur group as a postdoctoral fellow. He worked on the development of transition metal catalyzed fluorination reactions. Dong is now an Associate Professor at Hubei University of Technology, China (10/2013).

Dr Erika Luethi was born in Switzerland in 1982 and obtained her M.Sc. at the University of Bern in 2006 working on the synthesis and biological evaluation of glycosylated peptide dendrimers. During her PhD thesis, she synthesized new aspartate, glutamate and peptide analogues as ligands for the glutamate transporter protein and the NMDA receptor under the supervision of Prof. J.-L. Reymond at the same University. She joined the VG group in April 2011, to work on new chiral reagents for fluorination. In her spare time, she enjoys exploring the shire by bike.

Dr S. Mizuta

Dr Satoshi Mizuta received his Ph.D. at Nagoya Institute of Technology in 2008. He worked with Prof. Carlos. F. BarbasIII studying organocatalysis at The Scripps Research Institute. Then he went back to Japan to work at the Sagami Chemical Research Institute in 2010-2011. He joined the VG group as a Marie-Curie Fellow in September 2011 until May 2013, to work on the catalytic trifluoromethylation and the development of synthetic method for [18F]labelling. Satoshi is now an Assistant Professor at Nagasaki University, Japan (06/2013).

Dr M. N. Hopkinson

Dr J. Manso De Oliveira Silva

Dr C. Jorgensen

Dr R Leuma Yona

Dr T. Martinez Del Campo

Dr J. Walkowiack

Dr L. Bonnac

Dr R. Bejot

Dr Arnaud Tessier was a postdoc in the VG group 2006-2008, working on trifluoromethylation reactions and gold-catalyzed reactions. Now he is CNRS researcher in Symbiose team at Nantes, working on new synthetic methodologies and total synthesis
of bioactive compounds.

Dr Marie Schuler carried out her PhD under the supervision of Prof Léon Ghosez at the University of Bordeaux. She joined the Gouverneur group for a postdoc from 2006 to 2008 to work in the synthesis of fluorinated heterocycles, gold and phosphine catalysed reactions. She is now assistant professor (maître de conférences) at the University of Orléans (09/2011) and works in the group of Prof Arnaud Tatiboüet at ICOA. Her research deals with the study of unusual thio-functions in glycochemistry as a tool for the preparation of small nitrogen and/or sulfur containing heterocycles.

Dr M. Sawicki

Dr C. Bobbio

Dr M. Carmen Pacheco

Dr K. Tenza

Dr N. Hodnett

Dr S. Lee

Dr S. Thibaudeau

Dr A-L. Villard

Dr S. Ropp

Dr R. Razet

DPhils/PhDs

Ida Sofia Stenhagen received her MSci degree in Medicinal Chemistry from University College London. She is a final year DPhil student working on electrophilic fluorine-18 labelling for PET-imaging. In her spare time she enjoyed discovering obscure bands and going to the cinema. Currently, Ida works at the University of Oslo.

Oscar Galicia López was born in Mexico City, graduated from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México with Msc in Inorganic Chemistry at the Institute of Chemistry UNAM under the supervision of Professor David Morales-Morales. He was a member of St. Cross College. He worked on silicon and fluorine chemistry. He enjoys travelling and is now back in Mexico (12/2013).

Jamie Wolstenhume was a DPhil student, working on the development of chiral N-F fluorinating reagents. He completed his MChem at Balliol College, Oxford and spent his part II year in the Gouverneur group, working on PET tracers for tumour imaging. Outside of the lab he can be found in the garage repairing his mini or playing tennis, badminton, squash or football. Jamie is now a postdoc in Dr Martin Smith's group at the University of Oxford (10/2013).

George Blessley worked on asymmetric fluorocyclization and metal catalysed defluorinations. He completed his MSci at Downing College, Cambridge under the supervision of Paul Barker, working on the synthesis of click-linked porphyrins. When he wasn't in the lab, you would have probably found him on the river. George is now working as a Management consultant at McKinsey and Co. in London (10/2013).

Charlotte Hollingworth (Charley) completed her BSc and MSc at the University of York in 2008. As a DPhil student in the Gouverneur group, she worked on palladium catalysed nucleophilic fluorination. Outside the lab she enjoyed going to gigs and playing badminton. Charley is now working as an editor at Springer Science+Business Media.

Elena Benedetto was a DPhil student from Merton College. She investigated platinum catalysed allylic substitution. She received her MSci in Organic Chemistry at the University of Bologna, where she worked on organocatalytic stereoselective alpha-alkylation of aldehydes under the supervision of Prof. P. G. Cozzi. After passing her viva in 2013, Elena did a postdoc with Professor Michael C. Willis and is now working as a study coordinator at the Medical Sciences Division, University of Oxford.

Keary Mark Engle was a graduate student in the Gouverneur group from 2011–2013. As a Skaggs-Oxford Scholar, Keary earned a joint Ph.D./D.Phil. at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Oxford. At TSRI, he worked with Prof. Jin-Quan Yu studying ligand-accelerated catalysis in Pd(II)-mediated C–H functionalization reactions. In the Gouverneur group at Oxford, he carried out research on radical-based trifluoromethylation. He was a member of Lincoln College, and his hobbies include long-distance running, football, and tennis. Keary is now back to the US. He passed his viva in May 2013 and joined the group of Professor Robert H. Grubbs as a postdoctoral fellow.

J. Ilupeju

Wolfson College, D Phil awarded in 2013

L. Combettes

St Hilda College, D Phil awarded in 2012

R. Huting

Oriel College, D Phil awarded in 2011

Lei Li

Wolfson College, D Phil awarded in 2011

M. Hopkinson

Merton College, D Phil awarded in 2011

Guy Giuffredi

LIncoln College, D Phil awarded in 2011

J. Harvey

New College, D Phil awarded in 2010

S. Boldon

New College, D Phil awarded in 2010

Yee Hwee Lim

Lincoln College, D Phil awarded in 2010

L. Carroll

New College, D Phil awarded in 2010

A. Hazari

Merton College, D Phil awarded in 2009

J. Blasco Matta

Wolfson College, D Phil awarded in 2009

S. Wilkinson

Linacre College, D Phil awarded in 2009

H. Teare

Merton College, D Phil awarded in 2009

C. Lam

Merton College, D Phil awarded in 2009

S. Purser

Jesus College, D Phil awarded in 2008

F. Silva

Merton College, D Phil awarded in 2007

M. Tredwell

St Catherine’s College, D Phil awarded in 2007

K. Dunne

Wolfson College, D Phil awarded in 2006

M. Reiter

Merton College, D Phil awarded in 2006

F. Bisaro

Wolfson College, D Phil awarded in 2006

C. Slinn

Wadham College, D Phil awarded in 2004

C. Baker-Glenn

New College, D Phil awarded in 2004

V. Maggiotti

Wolfson College, D Phil awarded in 2002

B. Greedy

St Catherine’s College, D Phil awarded in 2003

M. Schuman

Linacre College, D Phil awarded in 2003

Part IIs

Alexander Bajjon was a Part II Student from Merton College. He worked on 18F radiolabelling of molecules for PET imaging. Outside of the lab, he enjoyed sailing with the University Yacht Club and also playing the piano.

Jack Twilton was a Part II student from Somerville College. He worked on the development of fluorination agents. Outside of the lab, he enjoyed reading and watching a tad too much tv. Jack is now a PhD student in the MacMillan Lab at Princeton, USA.

Jessica Rosenqvist did her Part II studies, working on asymmetric fluorocyclisation reactions. She completed her European Baccalaureate in Italy before coming to Oxford in 2009. In her spare time, she enjoyed playing ultimate frisbee and learning new languages. She was a member of Corpus Christi College (07/2013).

Thomas Keller had been a member of Hertford College in 2009-13. During his Part II year in the Gouverneur group, he studied the oxidative fluorination of aromatic and heterocyclic motifs. In his spare time he enjoyed playing music in various orchestras. Tom is now a RADIOMI ESR fellow at the UTU, Finland.

Chris Tinworth did his Part II studies, working on nucleophilic fluorination of diazo compounds. He has started a PhD at GlaxoSmithKine/University of Strathclyde in September 2013.

Wojciech Kaluza was born in Sosnowiec, Poland, where he did his A-levels before coming to Oxford in 2007. In his fourth year project, he investigated novel methods for fluorination. He spends his free time learning Finnish and writing a self-study book of Polish as a foreign language.